Revenge Lessons
by sunisha
Summary: Four-year-old Emily is tired of her older brother, and two young Care Bears are ready to help - even if their methods are unconventional. This one-shot story is set during Movie 2, when the family is high-school aged. Hope you have fun reading it!
DISCLAIMER: This humble author does not own (but deeply loves) the Care Bear Family. The characters are based on the old movies and episodes from the 80s by Dic and Nelvana, with some influence from the Marvel comics; but they have also been infused with the interpretations of their authors.

NOTE: This short story was meant to be the opening chapter of a larger story about the Care Bear Family sometime during Movie 2, approximately 1 year before the Family has its final showdown with Dark Heart. It seems to be taking forever to execute our grand plans, but we were dying to post something in the meantime – hence this entry. In this fic, the Care Bears are in their mid to late teens. Hope you all enjoy it!

 **Revenge Lessons**

Little Emily Foster sat upright on her bed, listening to the thumpity thump of irregular footsteps down the hall. There was a creak, a scuffle, and then silence. Her older brother Andy had made it to the landing. Soon he would slip into her room, naive and unsuspecting, and the fun would begin.

"Get down, Em," a voice from under her bed chided. "He thinks you're sleepin', remember?"

The little girl burrowed under the covers, making sure to preserve a peep hole in the sheets. She strained her ears for the sounds of Andy's prowling. None were forthcoming.

"We get up now, Brave Heart?" she whispered into the dark.

"Shh!" the voice answered. "Not yet."

"Any more of this, and we'll _all_ get caught," a different voice, snider and more nasal than Brave Heart's, remarked. It, too, issued from under the bed, and it sounded strained, as if its owner were being crushed by the weight of a small child curling up exactly over the place where he lay crouched.

All three mouths closed firmly at this rejoinder. The room was so still and silent that Emily really _was_ tempted to fall asleep. And not a moment too soon. For just then, the door creaked open, and the silhouette of a young boy could be seen sidling across the threshold.

Andy Foster was eight years old and, by default, a household pest. Fortunately, Emily's parents understood this, and they duly reprimanded Andy whenever he teased Emily or pulled on her pigtails. But in Emily's opinion, even they could not fully correct the life of subjugation she suffered under Andy's rule. A scolding would never heal the scraped knees she earned when Big Bad Andy knocked her over; nor could they fix the box of crayons he had broken the day after they had been bought for her birthday. And when Andy's poking and prodding became too much for Emily to bear, she would whine and whimper and will herself to explain to her parents the reason for her outburst, but she was rarely coherent when she was in tears. This would only make her crabbier, and would earn her an early naptime.

Such was Emily's situation one afternoon, when Andy had his friends over for a game of Cowboys and Indians. The boys had brought along their water guns, and Emily had armed herself with a pair of crayons and some construction paper before retreating into the safety of her bedroom. The boys' voices had carried up to her window from the backyard. Andy was planning a prank to top all pranks.

"What're you gonna do, blow an armpit fart while Miss Columbine does fractions?" one boy asked.

"No – I'm gonna scare Emily so bad, she'll pee in bed."

That had gotten Emily's attention. Andy's plan was alarmingly simple. He would wait until past her bedtime, at which time he would don his baggiest clothing, cover his face with the werewolf mask his parents had bought him for Halloween, and then creep into her bedroom. All it would take was a prod in the nose or the touch of his cold, clammy fingers on her warm neck, and she would awake, shrieking, to a veritable monster towering over her bed. It did not matter that Emily knew the plan in advance; Andy's mask, the accompanying growl, and the cover of darkness were sure to frighten her, whether anticipated or not. And when this happened, Emily would inevitably cry. Andy would be punished, as was the general order in their household, but he would also have the perennial satisfaction of calling Emily a "baby preschooler." And worst of all, the prank would be repeated.

Upon hearing Andy's plan, Emily had flown down the stairs and had howled at her mother, "But I don't _wanna_ be a baby!"

But Mrs. Foster had not understood. She had cuddled her and calmed her with a story before putting her down for a nap. In the meantime, Emily could not seem to convey that a Big Bad Andy-wolf was going to appear in her bedroom in a week's time, for she possessed neither the vocabulary nor the linguistic finesse to explain. But her friend Brave Heart and his assistant Grumpy, the owner of the second under-the-bed voice, had understood her completely. They always seemed able to decipher her messages, even if it took them several minutes to do so.

Which is why the three of them lay in wait a week later, in the dark, quiet confines of Emily's bedroom. By now Andy had reached the bed, and his werewolf mask gleamed horribly in the moonlight. Emily fought down a whimper. Brave Heart had promised her a laugh, but her brother's arms were raised...she was about to squeeze her eyes shut, for the growling had begun...Andy the monster took another step...

And without warning, he was careening on one foot across the floor, his arms splayed wide, and the werewolf mask dangling askew around his neck.

"YEEEOOOOWWW!" he yelped.

Thump, thump, thump! The Fosters were at Emily's door in seconds. On came the lights, and there sat Andy, slumped amid a pile of towels in the corner of his younger sister's room, his feet dripping in vegetable oil and soap suds.

"What's going on here?" exclaimed Mr. Foster.

Emily sat up and rubbed her eyes. Her tousled pigtails and her squinty eyes (which she had rehearsed over and over again with Brave Heart, while Grumpy had humphed in the background) were the picture of innocence. "Daddy? Mommy?" Only then did she allow her gaze to swivel to her brother. " _Andy_?" she asked, making sure to place both hands over her mouth. Beneath her bedframe, Brave Heart pumped his fist gleefully.

"Andrew Thomas Foster - how many times do I have to tell you to leave your sister alone?"

"But Mom - !" began the discomfited boy.

"And you've opened our last four bars of soap! _And_ ruined your pajamas! What do you have to say for yourself, young man?"

Andy was beside himself. He attempted to stand up, but his slippery feet gave way, causing him to collapse back into the towels. "I didn't do it!"

Mrs. Foster sighed as if praying for patience. "Come on, up you get…"

The next fifteen minutes were a bustle of activity as the Fosters herded Andy out of the bedroom and mopped up the slick slop of oil and soap bars, all the while scolding the older boy and attending to Emily with kisses and caresses. When the lights had been switched off and the door clicked shut once more, Emily shot up into a sitting position and giggled heartily into her pillows.

Her two friends took this as their cue to worm their way out from under the bed frame. A moment later, they emerged into the moonlight - and had Andy seen them, he would have let loose another shout. For one was an orange lion no taller than Emily's bedside table, and the other was a blue bear who stood half a head shorter than his companion. At the moment, hunched over as he was from having crouched directly under Emily's weight for so long, the latter looked remarkably like a teddy bear.

Brave Heart Lion leapt beside the young girl and clapped her on the back. "Ya did it, Em!" he said.

"Shh!" Grumpy Bear whispered. "You want them to catch us?"

"Aw, stop fussin.' How do ya feel now, Em?"

The little girl responded by hugging Brave Heart very hard around the middle. "I love you," she told him earnestly. And to prove it, she planted a kiss on top of his mane.

Grumpy crossed his arms and peered skyward. If anyone deserved a kiss right now, it was _not_ Brave Heart Lion, who had just indoctrinated four-year-old Emily Foster into the ranks of practical jokers.


End file.
